The prevention and treatment of bedsores (and similar pressure injuries) is a serious issue facing hospitals and other healthcare facilities. Bedsores (also known as decubitus ulcers or pressure sores) result from prolonged pressure on an area. For example, a bedsore is a tissue injury that develops when soft tissue is compressed between a bony prominence and an external surface for a prolonged period of time. Bedsores are most likely to form on the back of the head, the sacrum, heels, ankles, buttocks, or shoulders. Bedsores are painful and can be life-threatening to patients, particularly the elderly and disabled. Excessive pressure on recent surgical incisions can lead to wound healing complications with similar etiology. The National Decubitus Foundation estimated that as many as 16% of the population of U.S. hospitals, alone, suffered from some form of pressure wound such as a bedsore.
Bedsores are most common for patients confined to a bed, chair or wheelchair. These furniture support systems often include padding made from cotton, feathers, foam, or the like. Some techniques for preventing bedsores focus on the design of the furniture and padding. To ease pressure, furniture has been introduced that include a fixed quantity of air or liquid in one or more chambers to provide therapeutic benefits, including minimizing the severity of pressure points on a user's body. In addition, some of these support systems include manual or programmable adjustable cushion sections. However, these systems cannot be adjusted based on feedback about the current condition of a patient and therefore, a patient may still develop bedsores using therapeutic furniture. Once a bedsore develops it is important to mitigate continued excessive pressure to the region to facilitate the healing process.
Another typical method for preventing bedsores involves frequent repositioning of a patient. However, this method of prevention is highly time consuming for medical and care facilities, particularly facilities having a large number of disabled or immobile patients. What is therefore needed is a system that can automatically adjust a support structure (or external padding for furniture) based on pressure monitored on one or more areas of a patient.